


Venus on the Run

by Nope



Category: Hellblazer, Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-08
Updated: 2007-02-08
Packaged: 2018-11-05 13:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11014056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: raise their hopes both sad and sunkenslash them up as they lie there drunken





	Venus on the Run

Seven minutes after yet another banged up innocent had forcibly vomited black demon goop into the night, Mucous Membrane's "Venus of the Hard Sell" screamed out the Impala's speakers, shook the windows at the front (where John Constantine and Dean Winchester head-banged along) and rattled those at the back (where Sam scrunched up in his seat, only his broken wrist keeping him from clapping both hands to his ears.)

 

"It's okay," Dean said. "He jerks off with the other hand."

Sam thought he should be annoyed or insulted or something but he just laughed. It seemed better that way. He was drunk -- he was fucking wasted. They were in Harvelle's Roadhouse. Still. Again. What-the-fuck-ever. Ellen cleaned a glass, almost-smiling at them over the counter.

"Beers, banter and bullshit," John said, banging his glass down. Four overlapping circles on the dark wood. "Only trinity I follow."

"I hear that, man," Dean said. He'd taken his jacket off. Sam could see a line of drying blood on a bare upper arm. He got another round in.

 

Post-drunk, in that awful mothballed clarity of a full-on hangover, Sam remembered pertinent details (like 'you promised, Dean') but only details, like someone took a cheese slicer to his memories; everything faded in in pieces, a shuffled stack of Polaroids pinned to a map on the wall, frozen and disconnected.

 

"You can't protect your loved ones forever," Ellen said.

She sat with them at the table. Chairs on the others because they were the only ones left, Sam coming back up on dizzy from the other side, Dean blissed out, John laughing, bitter and easy.

"You can't protect them at all," he said.

"Maybe." Ellen's smile was a blessing, a benediction. "But you can try."

John went somewhere in his head, Sam could see the hollowing, but he came back smiling.

"You got any magic in you, sweetheart?" He asked.

Ellen actually laughed. "That line ever worked for you, Constantine?"

"There's a first time for everything," John said, and poured them all another round, bartender included.

 

Sam knew lots of truths. You were never more than six feet from a rat. You were never more than a hundred yards from a cockroach. You were never more a mile from something inhuman that'll suck your eyeballs out soon as look at you. You watched your brother shower sometimes through your eyelashes, pretending sleep until he'd gone and you could get yourself off, one, two, three quick strokes.

 

"Home are the hunters!" Dean crowed, barging in through the Roadhouse door, John and Dean both still on that adrenaline high, Sam crashing behind them. "Oh, yes, we rock; thank you, thank you." He mugged to the crowd, finger-gunned and winked at a cute redhead who smirked back. "Hello ladies."

"Boys," Ellen said. "Constantine."

"What do I have to do to get you to call me John?" he asked.

She gave him a half-smile, but no answer. "What can I get you?"

"We need beer," Dean said significantly. "Lots of beer."

John smirked. "Say hallelujah."

 

John believed everything a little and nothing a lot; he used what worked and that was enough. Sam wanted to believe but didn't, not really, not the way Pastor Jim had wanted. Dean didn't believe, but he had a faith all of his own; its name was Family.

 

"We're all bought and sold," John said. "Used, abused, and here to go."

He was almost fifty-four but in good light he looked maybe forty at most. Leaning naked on the motel balcony in that near darkness, in the dusky orange of the street lamps, in the flare of a match, the cigarette glow, he could have passed for twenty-five. His voice was low, a little raspy, a little slurred. Alcohol, cigarettes and regret.

"Good. Evil." He half-shrugged, a roll of shoulders. "Two bullies in a schoolyard. Heaven and Hell don't give two tugs of a dead dog's cock about any of us. Destiny's as much bullshit as everything else."

John took a drag, breathed out. Sam watched muscles move under John's skin, the curve of John's spine, the fingerprint bruises, the rising halo of smoke.

 

Dean laughed too hard to finish his sentence and John, chuckling along, slopped the tequila when he tried to refill their glasses. They'd started off on thrash punk versus mullet rock, swung through Blue Öyster Cult to take in the Velvet Underground (John swore blind he'd lost his virginity to Nico), the Beatles, Queen, Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones. Sam just smiled and nodded and let it all roll over him, warm and comfortable and sotted, basically; drunk as a skunk in a funk in his bunk with a monk on junk.

 

"I need a piss," John announced, wobbling a little as he stood up. "Where's your lav?"

"John's that way," Dean said, and Sam near wet himself laughing. Dean blinked slowly at him, half smiling. "What? What did I say?"

"Come on, magic man." Ellen got up too. "I'll show you the way."

They supported each other along the way, heads together, conspiratorial, low voices and laughter.

"That sly dog!" said Dean, impressed.

"What?" asked Sam. Dean looked at him. "What, Dean? Wait, wait..." He had this. Okay, brain. Yeah. "Wait, you mean-- John and Ellen? No way."

"Way."

"No way. Really?"

"He's slipping her some English sausage right now." Dean grinned and grabbed the bottle.

"Well... fuck." Sam shoved his glass over. "How'd he do that?"

They looked at each at the same time and chorused "magic".

"Woo," said Dean, wiggling his fingers and Sam laughed, slumping sideways in his chair so he could lean against his brother. Dean called him a lightweight pansy but dropped an arm over his shoulder and poured another drink, so that was okay.

 

Something, something, something. Pornographic Polaroids here. Like a vision, really. There was that whole thing about Death and Sex he only vaguely remembered Jess saying at Stanford. John's fingers. Dean's amulet, black cloth and bare skin. Rough stubble. Stumbling against the door, fumbling keys one-handed. Not enough hands. Too many. Legs. Mouths. So much skin. Sweat beading. Hearts pounding. How did they even get in the room? Everything broken up and put back together haphazard. Bodies curving together, apart, together. Magic, of course. His name shaped on Dean's lips. John's hand in the small of his back. Fingers in his hair. Of course it's magic.

 

"The yellow-eyed bastard demon has a plan for me," Sam said. "Plans for all of us."

"Yeah? I have demon blood and they don't get me to do shit," John said. "Fuck the whole bloody lot of 'em."

"To hell with that destiny crap," Dean agreed, waving his beer bottle at John before draining it dry. "Come on Sam. Lighten up. We kicked -- what the fuck did you say that was?"

"Mictlantecuhtli," said John, passing him another. "God of bones and of the grave mouth and of all that begins when the heart stops."

"We kicked death-god ass! How cool are we?"

"We shot at things until we ran out of rock salt, accidentally set fire to a cemetary, and then John talked the fucker to death," Sam said.

"Which is a win," Dean announced.

"Close enough," agreed John.

"Yeah," says Sam. "Okay. We win. Fuck the demon."

"Fuck the demon," agreed Dean.

They clinked their bottles together.

John grinned. "Abracadabra."

 

They'd swapped positions somewhere along the way and Sam wasn't sure when or how. They'd sort it out. The room smelled stale, but they'd sort that out too. They'd sort it all out. That's what they did. He stretched a little. The arm around him squeezed a little tighter.

A thick mumble. "G'back t' sleep, Sammy."

Sam did.


End file.
